Saturday, September 23, 2006

Somehow, when we weren't looking, 11 balls of 3lbs of fluff have turned into 50 lb mini wolves...

What an amazing experience the last four months have been, and each and every day, there is more change, more growth, and more to learn....

A little back history:

Almost a year ago now, we at Wild Spirit all came to the very solemn realization that Raven, the miracle he is, was reaching the end of his career as our ambassador. It is amazing for any wolf to be in the public as a spokes-wolf at all, let alone as consistently and for as many years as Raven has been gracing the public eye. At 11 years of age, Raven has put in nine longe years of ambassadorship, and after all this time of thousands of hands rubbing across his body and many long hours standing on concrete floors, it is time for some peace and quiet.

Unfortunately, along with this solemn, realist though, came another difficult one... Raven was a miracle. Wolves & wolf-dogs in captivity are hardly ever so sociable, outgoing, and patient. The chances of another Raven falling into our lap are 1 in a million at best. And so, the other realization came that our best shot was to find a pup to start working with at as early of an age as possible.

At first, this idea seemed impossible as well. Afterall, as pups, wolves too are cute, malliable balls of fluff that no one wants to get rid of... It's not until they are full grown, and starting to mature that the myriad of problems associated with ownership begin to surface.

However, a friend of the Sanctuary put us in touch with a breeder in Oregon who had had a litter of Arctic wolves. While he had decided to get out of the wolf-breeding business, the breeder still had a pair of unaltered wolves who did in fact end up having a litter of pups.

Originally, the breeder agreed that five pups would come to Wild Spirit. The idea was exciting to all of us. Now, there were five possible chances at finding an ambassador. There were five pups that would never have to enter into the open market for captive wolves. And then, somewhat disheartening to all, we heard that the breeder had in fact decided to sell the pups, and only two were still coming to our Sanctuary.

While this was a disappointment of course, we all stomached the idea, knowing that this was originally the plan, and of course, two was much less work than five.. Then, two days before Leyton & Georgia left for Oregon, we got a call saying to plan on bringing six pups back with them. That's right, from 5 to 2 to 6...

And so, 6 little Arctic wolves came to the Sanctuary... Dark gray & fluffy, crystal blue eyes, held in the palms of our hands... 6 little Arctics came to Wild Spirit, and thus began an adventure that had barely begun...